<p>This thread just got me thinking about my cousin who worked double shifts as a nurse while her husband was in medical school. The week prior to his graduation, he asked her for a divorce. He was in love with another medical student. It was so sad and the crazy thing about it was that my aunt never trusted him, and confided in my mom that she felt he would do something like this to her daughter. They had a little girl together and he lived very nicely while she continued to work long hours. She should have had a better attorney!!! This was about 25 years ago and she still can’t stomach the sight of him.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>I know of a few of such cases. Thankfully, in those cases the women had good attys who insisted the women be given a portion of the doctors’ earnings for many years.</p>
<p>Thankfully, H quit medicine, but stuck with me. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I tried to read the whole thread and hope I’m not repeating someone else’s idea here. My son, who has no debt, is getting married soon. It made me a little uncomfortable to ask him if my future daughter-in-law has any debt. She does not. The only reason I asked was because the answer impacted how much cash we wanted to give them towards wedding expenses. Like many others H and I don’t have as many financial resources as we had anticipated due to the recession, but will help our kids out as much as we are comfortably able in coming years. It is our pleasure to be able to do so as long as we are able to do so. If she had debt we would be coming up with a plan to help pay it off, just as we would have done if debt had been necessary for our son’s education. But, in that case, we would give them less immediately for what we consider luxury expenses. If they had 200,000 debt, we would be advocating for town hall or a trip to Vegas! When they are married she is part of my family. I honestly believe her parents feel the same way toward my son.</p>
<p>I understand the negativity about designer purses – I share it myself. And I mentioned that my D needs to have good things. (She doesn’t want labels to be prominent, nor would she brag about it.)</p>
<p>I did find it hard to understand until I saw first hand how insecure she is about somethings, and a good purse (or sweater) or whatever, feels like armor to her.</p>
<p>I read an interview with Audrey Hepburn in which she said the same thing – how important her Givenchy wardrobe had been to her in helping her to feel safe.</p>
<p>It seems really spoiled and strange, but then i thought of her in German occupation and remembered her radiant face with an African baby on her back when she was a UNICEF good will ambassador and I began to understand that feeling safe and what one needs is very different for different people.</p>
<p>My D works endlessly as a volunteer for prison reform and anti-death-penalty work and if a Coach purse makes her feel safer and more put together so she can do that, I’ve learned not to be judgmental as long as she can economize in other places, which she can.</p>
<p>She has also told me she can only wear Lucky jeans (apparently they’re the only ones that fit her curves???), and they cost $130.00 a pair. Ugh. However, she buys seconds of them on ebay, Overstock and SmartBargains for $30.00 a pair, so again, I have learned to be less judgmental watching her strategizing to get what she needs.</p>
<p>I need to drive a car I’m in love with to feel good. I buy them used. Someone else would want a new car.</p>
<p>The point is not to demonize other people’s choices even if you happen not to understand them. The point is that there are lots and lots of people out there who think that anyone with educational debt is destined to live on rice and beans forever, never own a home, never get to buy a bottle of olive oil without having to worry about paying the phone bill and are therefore lifelong losers in the game of life. Loans are one strategy for financing an education. Just one. Deferring your consumption when your kids are small for a college investment fund is another strategy. Having your kid live at home and attend a local state college is yet another strategy. I wouldn’t presume to tell my kids not to marry someone who commuted to college to save money and I think it’s bizarre that you’d tell your kids not to marry someone with educational loans. But to each his own.</p>
<p>Yes- if you need lots of nice things in your life and are unwilling to wait for them, you will find it difficult to defer all that gratification during your low earning years while you pay off school loans and establish a credit history that will allow you to get a mortgage, etc. If you like nice things but can wait for them- or don’t care if you have no furniture even while your siblings or peers are trucking out their starter homes with real sofas with cushions and not third hand futons- then you will make a budget and stick to it. And if you don’t really care about stuff and are happy eating macaroni and cheese for dinner for a long time- then you can disregard the debate.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>The worst strawman in this thread.</p>
<p>The point is that there are lots and lots of people out there who think that anyone with educational debt is destined to live on rice and beans forever, never own a home, never get to buy a bottle of olive oil without having to worry about paying the phone bill and are therefore lifelong losers in the game of life.</p>
<p>No…there are student loans, and there are STUDENT LOANS. There are incomes and there are INCOMES. If your income is likely going to be modest, then taking out STUDENT LOANS will have you living on rice and beans. If your income will likely be very high, then STUDENT LOANS will likely be manageable.</p>
<p>It is all a matter of proportion, as mom2 notes.</p>
<p>One problematic issue that isn’t addressed here is actually knowing what the other person’s financial obligations are. I am directly aware of a marriage between two young people that ended quickly and unexpectedly when one found that the other had significant credit card debt that had arisen from gambling, in addition to rather large educational debt which had been known about. All in, the figure was somewhere in the 150K plus range, and the indebted spouse did not have a good employment prospect, for a variety of reasons that we won’t note here. The early days of the marriage were not filled with good news on the career front. </p>
<p>Having witnessed this, it makes me wonder if you should exchange credit reports or something. That seems so cold, but had the deceived party in this story had a full disclosure of the situation, the marriage would never have take place.</p>
<p>Frankly, back when we got married, no one would have loaned us any money anyway…but today is different. If you are in an income limited profession, it makes a lot of sense to figure a way to enter it without borrowing 100,000. And it makes sense to feel confident that you know your future spouse’s financial situation…especially with regard to debt. How to go about that without damaging the relationship is the tricky question.</p>
<p>Dude, are you serious? exchange credit reports? i thought the person you marry is the person you want to spend your life with and make babies, not some credit card applicant.</p>
<p>This is straight out of Jane Austen.</p>
<p>Frankly, back when we got married, no one would have loaned us any money anyway…</p>
<p>I think that’s one of the differences. When we got married back in the stone age, no one had huge student loans (because even elites were much cheaper back then and loans were more limited), and no one had huge credit card debts. </p>
<p>Also, back in the stone age, there wasn’t this attitude of…I could go to my state school for cheap, but my dream is to go to UElite and therefore I’ll borrow $200k to make my dream happen. I’ll worry about paying the loan back later.</p>
<p>Nowadays, it’s possible to unknowingly marry someone with $50k+ in credit card debt and/or $100k+ in student loans. That would be a major shock. That would be like marrying someone and then afterwards they told you that they had a felony arrest record.</p>
<p>BTW…in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice, Darby could easily afford to take on the entire Bennet household. Different situation.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I imagine that happens, but I don’t think it’s something new. I’d bet there were similar situations back in the day–maybe it wasn’t credit card debt, but I’m sure people entering marriages hid information about themselves–especially damaging information that might be a deal breaker. In fact, it happened to my sister-in-law who is 46. She married a guy who lied to her about children from a past marriage–he told her about his biological children from a first marriage, but didn’t tell her that he adopted his then-spouse’s children from his second marriage. He was financially responsible for them and not paying child support when he married my sil. She found out about them 6 months into the marriage when the child support folks found him and demanded the money he owed these kids. My sil took an equity loan on her house to help him pay for this. They’re still married (it’s been 18 years) and he’s still a screw-up.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>The fact that some people have gotten burned in other ways does not mean people shouldn’t pro-actively protect themselves now in regards to financial obligations.</p>
<p>However, sometimes we can’t find out until it’s too late. I know someone who found out the week after they came home from their honeymoon that her new husband’s DNA test ID’d him as the father of a new baby of a co-worker. He took the paternity test before the wedding, but didn’t tell his future bride. She immediately filed annulment papers.</p>
<p>I’m more concerned if they marry someone whose parents are oblivious to the impact of no health insurance post-graduation. I figure student loans will be repaid in time, by management and frugality of the couple. </p>
<p>By contrast, the unexpected, catastrophic impact of a random accident to an otherwise healthy young adult, uncovered by health insurance, brings a couple down financially so they are unable to recover, get credit to buy their first property and so forth.</p>
<p>When someone brings home a new boy or girl friend with intimations of serious marriage potential, I usually grill this way: Do they treat you well and understand your dreams? … Do you love them back?..Where did they go to college (I gotta know.)…What do they want to do for a living?..Do they have health insurance? </p>
<p>If there is some agreement between what they hope to do for a living and their old student loan amount, I’m not so worried. If their dreams sound somewhat unreachable, but they have a “Plan B” for what to do for a living in case their intended field tanks, I appreciate their flexibility and readiness for the curves that life brings to any couple.</p>
<p>No kidding, paying3tuitions. I know a young couple that is in exactly that situation. It’s so sad.</p>
<p>*When someone brings home a new boy or girl friend with intimations of serious marriage potential, I usually grill this way: Do they treat you well and understand your dreams? … Do you love them back?..Where did they go to college (I gotta know.)…What do they want to do for a living?..Do they have health insurance? *</p>
<p>Yes, it is a good idea that when you first start “sniffin’” that this boy/girlfriend might be a future mate, to start GENTLY asking the right questions. Not in a 20 questions format, but just kind of “here and there” ask pertinent questions.</p>
<p>“Dude, are you serious? exchange credit reports?”</p>
<p>Hayle yes! You live together and make a religious/emotional commitment to one another because this is the person you love and want to spend your life with. But if you understand what you’re doing, then you get a civil marriage because you want to build a shared economic life with the one you love. It’s very foolish to bet your life savings and future earnings on a partnership with a financial unknown quantity.</p>
<p>Credit reports aren’t the only way you can learn about someone’s financial history. If you grew up next door to your spouse, then you probably don’t need a credit report to know what he’s been up to. But if you met as adults, and your families didn’t grow up together, you should do your homework or caveat emptor.</p>
<p>How about that movie with Ben Stiller and the CIA father-in-law with the lie detector machine?</p>
<p>I would think that one would want to know if the prospective spouse has any STDs.</p>
<p>Some states still require STD blood tests. But I have to tell you, I’d rather be exposed to syphilis than to the brink of bankruptcy. There’s no penicillin that will cure a hidden child support obligation.</p>